Howard Aibel with Special Guest Mimi Melkonian, Piano

Howard Aibel, Pianist

Howard Aibel has won international acclaim as both a performer and teacher. The New York Times, reviewing a performance at Carnegie Hall, called him “a very impressive and authoritative artist.”  In Russia, where he recently delighted audiences with his performances of the Schumann and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerti No. 1, a top critic in St. Petersburg wrote:  “His playing was remarkable, evoking the memory of the golden age of piano playing.”

Aibel’s career was launched in 1959, with a highly successful New York debut as the winner of that year’s Naumburg Award.  He soon won a Fulbright Award and top prizes in the International Busoni and International Casella Piano Competitions as well, leading to highly successful tours of the United States, Europe and Mexico.  

He has since made six tours of Asia, where he performed with orchestra and in recital, and gave master classes in Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan.  In a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Aibel shared the stage with his son, the gifted conductor Anthony Aibel.  Howard has also performed and given master classes in Dublin, Ireland; Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia; and Salzburg, Austria. A recording of a performance at New York’s 92nd Street “Y” was released on TR Records and received high praise from critics.

This past February, Aibel performed at the Polish Consulate in New York City to raise funds for The Chopin Society of New York.  He will visit Russia for the fourth time in March 2008, where he will perform, lecture and give master classes at the famed Moscow Conservatory.

He is a frequent juror at many national and international piano competitions, including: the National Screening Committee for the Fulbright Awards; the International Naumburg Competition (New York City); the Palm Beach International Invitational Competition (Florida); the Grand Prize International Piano Competition (Italy); and the Anton Rubinstein International Piano Competition (Dresden, Germany).

Howard Aibel is listed in Benjamin Saver’s recent book The Most Wanted Piano Teachers in the USA, and in The International Who’s Who in Music.  He has recorded for Capitol Records, TR Records and Sonar Records.  He is a Steinway Artist.

Mimi Melkonian, Pianist

The highly respected and versatile Lebanese pianist Mimi Melkonian is a professor emerita of the Lebanese Higher National Conservatory, where she taught for 10 years. She regularly performed at the Conservatory, at important embassies in Beirut, and throughout the Middle East, with the trio that she founded and as a collaborative artist with many notable musicians.  Many of her students were recipients of scholarships to study in Weimar and Switzerland with such artists as Daniel Barenboim and Yo Yo Ma.

Ms. Melkonian has judged international competitions in Europe and the Middle East, and was appointed Good Will Ambassador bythe Governor of Arkansas.  Prior to her professional career, she graduated with honors from the Lebanese Higher National Conservatory (both piano and pedagogy).  She received post-graduate training from the Conservatoire Boulogne Billancourt in Paris, and was awarded an H.N.D. in Mathematics in London.  She has had a private teaching studio for many years and currently teaches at the Greenwich Country Day School.

Click here to see our complete list of performances.